A careful look underneath the fallen branches and bark of the dead tree shown above on a wet winter afternoon turned up 16 salamanders of 4 species - one Arboreal Salamander, two Coast Range Newts, one Yellow-eyed Ensatina, and 12 California Slender Salamanders, proving that wood debris on a forest floor is an important microhabitat for salamanders. Along with fallen debris, tree bark, tree cavities, root holes, and splits in trees are also useful habitat for many kinds of wildlife, including birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles, but dead trees and their debris are often removed indiscriminately without consideration for wildlife.

Signs indicating a road closure to protect newts as they migrate to
and from breeding areas during the rainy season, Contra Costa County.

Marin County sign made by Mrs. Honda's third grade class at Manor school.

Sign at dried up breeding pond in November, Contra Costa County

Same sign in late January in a full pond during a wet winter.

Sign in Marin County

Short Videos

California Newts on the move in the woods on a Fall morning.

A big ball of newts forms in the breeding pond when a male and female in amplexus are approached by several male newts who want to take the female.

Male and female newts in amplexus in the breeding pond. The males hold on tight and swim around the pond using their huge tails. One uses the toes on his hind feet to stroke a female, probably to make her receptive to take his spermatophore.

Views of a large mass of female newts in the breeding pond, as they go about laying and securing their eggs.

Female newts repeatedly attack and bite at newt egg sacs, probably in an attempt to eat them. Newts have been known to eat the eggs of their own kind.

Solitary males patrol the edge of the pond at the beginning of the breeding season waiting for females to arrive, and females are seen crawling overland and entering the water.

A stocky, medium-sized salamander with rough, grainy skin in the terrestrial phase, and no costal grooves.

Color and Pattern

Terrestrial adults are yellowish-brown to dark brown above, pale yellow to orange below.
(There is less contrast between dorsal and ventral color on sides than with T. granulosa.)
The eyelids and the area below the eyes are lighter than the rest of the head.
The iris is silvery to pale yellow.
The eyes appear to extend to or beyond the outline of the head when viewed from above, (unlike T. granulosa.)

Male / Female Differences

Breeding males develop smooth skin that looks wrinkled and baggy underwater, a flattened tail to aid with swimming, a swollen cloaca, and rough nuptial pads on the undersides of the feet to aid in holding onto females during amplexus.

Larvae

Aquatic larvae are the pond type, light yellow above with two dark regular narrow bands on the back.

Terrestrial and diurnal, often seen crawling over land in the daytime, becoming aquatic when breeding.
(In some permanent bodies of water, adults retain their aquatic breeding phase characteristics and live in the water year-round.)
Sometimes seen moving in large numbers to aquatic breeding sites during or after rains during breeding season.
Terrestrial newts spend the hot dry summer in moist habitats under woody debris, or in rock crevices and animal burrows, but can sometimes be seen wandering overland in moist habitat or conditions any time of the year.

Longevity

Longevity is not known, but it has been estimated that California Newts can live for more than 20 years.

Defense

Poisonous skin secretions containing the powerful neurotoxin tetrodotoxin repel most predators. The poison is widespread throughout the skin, muscles, and blood, and can cause death in many animals, including humans, if eaten in sufficient quantity. (One study estimated that 1,200 - 2,500 mice could be killed from the skin of one California Newt.) This poison can also be ingested through a mucous membrane or a cut in the skin, so care should always be taken when handling newts.

When threatened, a newt will assume a swaybacked defensive pose, closing its eyes, extending its limbs to the sides, and holding its tail straight out. This "unken reflex" exposes its bright orange ventral surface coloring which is a warning to potential predators.

Larvae are not poisonous and are preyed on by adult newts and other predators. Chemical cues from adult newts trigger larvae to seek cover.

In most locations the Common Gartersnake, Thamnophis sirtalis, has a high resistance to this poison, and is known to prey on Coast Range Newts.
There is evidence * that when Common Gartersnakes (Thamnophis sirtalis) eat Rough-skinned Newts (Taricha granulosa) they retain the deadly neurotoxin found in the skin of the newts called tetrodotoxin for several weeks, making the snakes poisonous (not venomous) to predators (such as birds or mammals) that eat the snakes. Since California Newts (Taricha torosa) also contain tetrodotoxin in their skin, and since gartersnake species other than T. sirtalis also eat newts, it is not unreasonable to conclude that any gartersnake that eats either species of newt is poisonous to predators.

According to Davis and Brattstrom, California Newts produce a repertoire of sounds. (Davis, J. R. and B. H. Brattstrom. 1975. Sounds produced by the California newts, Taricha torosa. Herpetologica 31:409-412.) The sounds are very faint and difficult to hear over environmental sounds in the field. They did not determine how the newts were able to physically produce these different sounds. Breeding phase Coast Range Newts from Orange County were observed and recorded in a laboratory in a naturalistic setting where they were able to continue their typical social behaviors.

Three types of sounds were documented: clicks, squeaks, and whistles.

Clicks were the most commonly heard sounds. They were made when newts were put in an unfamiliar location, and when they were confronted by another newt. (The clicks appeared to be used to establish territories.)

Squeaks were made when a newt was picked up, and were sometimes accompanied by the newt twisting its body. The purpose of the squeak might be to startle a predator or to advertise the newt's toxicity.

Whistles were observed during breeding activity when a newt was touched in the middle of the back by a human or another newt, such as when a male newt climbed onto the back of another male newt. It was produced by males and females. The sound was not observed and could not be artificially evoked two weeks after breeding was over. This sound appears to be used in sex recognition and to establish hierarchical relationships, similar to the release call of a frog.

Diet and Feeding

Adults eat small invertebrates such as worms, snails, slugs, sowbugs, and insects. They also consume amphibian eggs and larvae, including newt larvae and newt eggs. A small nestling bird was found in the stomach of one newt.
When feeding on the ground, adults feed by projecting a sticky tongue to capture prey. Aquatic adults open their mouth and suck the prey in.
Larvae eat small aquatic invertebrates, decomposing organic matter, and possibly other newt larvae.

Breeding

Reproduction is aquatic.
Adults proably reach reproductive maturity in their third year.
The breeding season lasts 6 - 12 weeks.
Adults migrate from terrestrial locations to ponds, reservoirs, and sluggish pools in streams to breed, typically beginning anywhere from late December to February, depending on rainfall amounts.
Populations that breed in stream pools migrate later, typically in March and April, after the stream flooding has subsided.
Migration may take several weeks and cover large distances. (In one study, newts were recaptured up to nearly two miles (3,200 m) away from the breeding pond where they were originally captured and marked.)
Newts have a strong homing instinct and typically return to the same breeding site each time they breed. This homing behavior has not been explained, but experiments show that it invoves a sense of their body position, but it could also involve the sense of smell or a form of celestial navigation.

Males arrive first, and stay longer than females.
In the water, males transform into their aquatic phase, with smooth skin that lightens in color, swollen cloacal lips, and tails enlarged and flattened to help them swim. Females develop smoother skin, but do not undergo as much change as males.
Males patrol the edges of the breeding pond waiting from females to enter the water. When a female enters, she may be mobbed by a number of males who struggle to hold on to her until one male grabs on and cannot be removed.
After a period of amplexus, where the male clutches the female from above, the male deposits a spermatophore and the female picks it up with her cloaca.

Eggs

Females lay and attach a spherical egg mass to submerged vegetation, branches, or rocks.
Southern populations tend to lay egg masses under rocks in quiet stream pools where northern and central populations tend to attach egg masses to vegetation.
Egg masses contain from 7 - 47 eggs. It is estimated from ovarian counts of 130 - 160 that females lay from 3 - 6 masses each.
Egg masses are attached just below the surface of the water. If the water rises significantly or lowers and strands the eggs, the eggs will die.

Incubation times may vary at various locations, from 14 - 52 days.

Larvae

The larval stage lasts several months.
The average larval period at one location in the Bay Area was observed to be from March to October.

Larvae transform and begin to live on land at the end of the summer or in early fall.

Larvae have been found in the spring in Southern California that were completing their metamorphosis, meaning they had hatched the previous year and had continued developing over the winter, but it appears that overwintering by larvae is uncommon. (Kuchta - Amphibiaweb)

Metamorphosis may be triggered by pond drying in some waters, but other factors that influence metamorphosis have not been determined.
Metamorphosis takes about 2 weeks, as the tail fin is absorbed and the gills are reduced.

Transformed juveniles leave the water with adult coloration and characteristics and with a trace of gills remaining.
At this time they cannot survive if kept in the water.
Juveniles leave the natal pond and travel overland where it is assumed they take refuge and do not return to the water until they breed.

Endemic to California.
Found along the coast and coast range mountains from Mendocino county south to San Diego county.
A disjunct population is found in the southern Sierra Nevada from northern Kern county at Breckenridge Mountain north to a zone of intergradation (or hybridization) with the Sierra Newt along the Kaweah River in Tulare County.
(Formerly newts throughout all of the Sierra Nevada were recognized as a different subspecies, T. t. sierra - Sierra Newt.)
Reports of sightings from northwestern Baja California have never been verified.

Co-exists with T. granulosa from Santa Cruz county north to Mendocino county.

Two subspecies of Taricha torosa have been traditionally recognized: T. t. sierrae, and T. t. torosa. In 2007, Shawn R. Kuchta1 showed that the two subspecies of Taricha torosa "constitute distinct evolutionary lineages and merit recognition as separate species: T. torosa (California newt) and T. sierrae (Sierra newt). " The contact zone between these two species is the southern Sierra Nevada with a "hybrid zone centered along the Kaweah River in Tulare County."

A geographically isolated population of T. torosa in San Diego county has very warty skin and was once recognized as either a differen species T. klauberi, or as a different subspecies T.t. klauberi, the Warty Newt, but the warty appearance was determined to be caused by disease. Recent analysis (2) has determined that these San Diego county newts are "genetically differentiated, demographically independent, geographically disjunct, and have a history of isolation relative to the coastal populations."

Warty newts have also been reported from the San Francisco Peninsula.

Genetic variation exists between newts found north and south of the Salinas Valley.

Some verified populations in San Diego County are now extinct. Southern California populations have suffered population declines due to habitat loss and alteration caused by human activity, and from introduced predatory mosquitofish, crayfish, and bullfrogs, which eat the non-poisonous larvae and eggs. Breeding ponds have been destroyed for development, and stream pools used for breeding have been destroyed by sedimentation caused by wildfires.

The following status listings are copied from the April 2018 Special Animals List and the 2017 Endangered and Threatened Animals List, both of which are published by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

If no status is listed here, the animal is not included on either CDFW list. This most likely indicates that there are no serious conservation concerns for the animal. To find out more about an animal's status, you can go to the NatureServe and IUCN websites to check their rankings.